The Funicular Operator

If Cherry Gelato is your strain, this is your sign: the Funicular Operator. The top of the hill at dusk, a brass lever under one gloved hand, the small car waiting at the foot of the track, and you ready to bring it up to meet the other exactly halfway.

If Cherry Gelato is your strain

You are the one who keeps two things in balance. Every evening you stand at the top of the hill with one hand on the lever and send one car up while you bring the other down, and nobody riding either of them thinks about the cable. That is the job done right. You would not have it any other way.

You move slowly and you are never late. You can tell the weight of a full car by the note the cable sings, and you know from the hum when somebody has boarded with something long and awkward. You oil the wheel before it asks. You love the hour when the windows come on one by one down the hill and the whole town looks as if it is climbing toward you.

At your best you make the climb feel like nothing. People step off at the top saying they did not feel a thing, and you take that as the compliment it is. You know every regular by the car they ride, and in all your years the two cars have never met anywhere but the loop, halfway, exactly where they should.

Your flaw is that you correct names. People call the dark car by the rose car’s name, or call your hill by the name of the bigger hill across the river, and you tell them, gently, every time. You are right every time. You have been told that being right is not always the point. You have corrected that too.

What you need is a wheelhouse with windows on three sides, a lever that answers the first time, and the four seconds each evening when the two cars pass at the loop and their lamps light each other’s faces. Give you that, and now and then someone who gets the name right on the first try, and the hill looks after itself.

Your hour: Dusk, when the windows come on
Your place: The wheelhouse at the top of the hill
Your object: A brass lever, worn bright where the glove goes
Your tempo: One car up, one car down
Your weather: A still evening, rose going to indigo
Your flaw: You correct names

Your people

The Night Courier (Sour Diesel)The Night Courier takes the cherry walk two steps at a time and beats your car to the top about half the time. You let him believe it is more.
The Mountain Elder (Hindu Kush)The Mountain Elder walks the hills you carry people up, and approves of the cable, because it lets the hill decide the speed.
Cindy at Midnight (Cinderella 99)Cindy races the clock tower; you race nothing and arrive on the minute. She thinks you are slow. You have never once missed the last car.

Things you say

One goes up, one comes down. That’s fair.
That one is across the river. This is the other one.
If you didn’t feel the climb, I did my job.
Same cable, different cars.
Four seconds at the loop is plenty, if you look.

A scene from your world

Four seconds at the loop

The Funicular Operator climbs the last steps to the wheelhouse a little before dusk, when the stone is still warm from the day and the river below has begun to turn the color of plums. He hangs his jacket on its hook, pulls on the leather gloves and lays one hand on the brass lever, worn bright where the glove goes. Overhead the great wheel waits with the cable wrapped twice around it, oiled at noon.

There are two cars on the hill and one cable between them. The rose car waits at the bottom station by the river; the dark car sits at his feet. When one goes up, the other must come down. That is the whole arrangement, and it has never once failed to be fair. Far below, the signal lamp at the bottom station blinks twice: the doors are shut. He eases the lever forward.

The cable hums. From the note he can tell that the rose car is nearly full and that someone near the back has brought something long and square, perhaps an easel. The dark car slides away from the platform and down between the cream houses, empty except for the woman from the bakery, who rides it down every evening and up every morning and has never once got on the wrong one.

Halfway down, the track splits into the passing loop, and that is where the evening happens. The two cars come toward each other as slowly as a sentence, and for four seconds they are side by side: the rose car’s lamp lights the dark car’s windows, the dark car’s lamp lights the rose car’s, and everyone on the hill looks across at a stranger going the other way. Then the rails join again and the cars are apart.

At the top the rose car settles against the platform with a sigh of brakes. The passengers step out saying they did not feel a thing, which he takes as the compliment it is. The last one off is a young man with an easel under one arm, who asks whether this is the hill with the famous view. “That one is across the river,” says the Operator. “This is the other one.” He says it kindly. He has said it a great many times.

The young man looks disappointed for about as long as it takes to turn around. Below him the whole town is lighting up window by window, the cherry trees along the track have gone pink in the last of the sun, and the river is holding the sky. He sets the easel up right there on the platform. The Operator goes back to the lever, and the rose car starts down, and the dark car starts up, and they meet exactly halfway, as they do.

Later, with the windows all lit and the easel packed, the young man asks what this hill is called, to write it on the back of the canvas. The Operator tells him. The young man writes it carefully, spelling it under his breath, and gets it right the first time, and the Operator, who had been ready to correct it, finds he has nothing to say, and for once says nothing at all, and smiles.

The hill

The wheelhouse: Glass on three sides at the top of the hill, a stool nobody sits on, the brass lever and the great wheel overhead. From here the whole hill is one straight line.
The two cars: One rose, one dark, hung on the same cable. They are never in the same place except at the loop, and people have mixed them up for as long as there have been people.
The passing loop: Halfway down, where the rails split for a few car-lengths. The cars pass in four seconds, lamps lighting each other, and passengers wave at strangers going the other way.
The great wheel: Iron, taller than the Operator, with the cable wrapped twice around it. Oiled at noon, whether it asks or not.
The bottom station: Down by the river, with a small signal lamp that blinks twice when the doors are shut. The bakery is next door, which explains a great deal about the morning cars.
The cherry walk: The steps that climb beside the track under a row of cherry trees. People walk up to prove a point and ride down to recover.